Michael Larosa, a 32-year-old town native, built his company, Buy New England Lobster, LLC, from a business run out of a shack to a $20 million annual business with a global customer base.
Larosa, Lynnfield High School Class of 2006, founded the company in 2010 and in 2018, he and his paternal aunt, Laura DePalma, bought out a partner and the company has been on a roll ever since.
His largest international orders come from customers in France, Spain, and Italy. His business in Southeast Asia is also strong. Larosa said retailers in Texas, Florida, and Georgia are his top American customers.
Buy New England buys directly from Boston boats and also sends trucks to Marblehead and the South Shore where he buys from other dealers who have purchased directly from lobstermen.
Larosa’s company processes anywhere from 10,000 to 20,000 pounds of lobsters a day, five to six days a week.
“We used to send four trucks out every day, but now we are buying more second-hand from wholesalers,” Larosa said. “It’s a much cleaner sale as opposed to buying from 15 different boats.”
Larosa grew up in the lobster business. By the time he was in high school, he was spending his summers working on his father, David Larosa’s, boat. He learned about the business, even as he sketched out his future.
“I built a little shack, sort of a garage, on the dock in South Boston where my father ties up his boat, and that’s how it all began,” said Larosa. “It was only me, just selling lobsters.”
The business had its growing pains as Larosa slowly began to expand operations.
“At first, I started with my dad’s Tacoma pickup truck. I’d pack about 1,600 pounds of lobster onto the truck, which would often fall off into the street. Eventually, I was able to buy a refrigerated truck and that made a huge difference.”
Larosa moved his operation three years ago to Terminal Street in Charlestown. The company employs anywhere from 15 to 18 people, depending on the season.
The pandemic has posed multiple challenges, not just in terms of reduced pricing, but management of inventory.
“We never closed down, we worked through it, but in early March we had a huge inventory,” Larosa said. “Our last sale before COVID was an order of three to four pound lobsters at $14.95 a pound. The customer actually tried to cancel. But we ended up having to unload practically our whole inventory (which at peak is somewhere between 40,000-55,000 pounds). We sold the whole thing for $4.50 a pound, just days after getting $14.95. I think the guy that bought us out spec’d them for about $4.95, but we just had to salvage what we could.”
Since onset of the pandemic, Larosa said prices have dropped because the product isn’t moving as fast.
“COVID has definitely caused the price to be a little lower because lobsters are moving at a lower level, but overall business is pretty good,” Larosa said. “Retailers, meaning grocery stores and other sellers have been doing well, but the restaurants, obviously not so much.”
Larosa is working on adding a new component to operations.
“I want to grow the business and do value-added lobster processing, which means selling the lower quality meat to canneries who process them and then sell to retailers. We do some of that already as every day after we grade them, we send a bunch of crates to canneries, but I think the opportunity is there to expand,” he explained.
